I get lots of emails from folks saying that they have trouble vacuum sealing used jars which held commercial prepared food, such as jelly jars, maraschino cherry jars, olive jars, etc. Here's the fix.
I use glass mason jars filled with dry powder flour, sugar whatever leave one inch headspace cover with clean coffee filter put lid and can also use 2 lids inside vacuum sealer jar adapter and just vaccum seal away. When done open lid to vaccum sealer and remove hose from jar sealer adapter and the top lid can be removed but the original bottom lid is sealed tight! By putting the coffee filter inside it prevents fine powder being soaked up into the hose It works fine for me all the time!
Another way to heat your lids is to place them in a gallon bag and dip the end in boiling water until lids are hot ...also the video response on vacuum sealing ...works great on all jars ,even the huge pickle jars ....i've been doing it for years.....I have watched all your videos and learned so much from them ...never stop posting them ...you and prepper A have a good day
Katz, I am continuing to watch all of your videos. This is such a great idea! Thank you again for sharing with us and taking time to do these! Blessings to your family.
I stick my used lids and the commercial lids in my toaster over (heated up a little and then turned off) for a minute or two before I vacuum seal my jars! Works like a charm!
Great vid. I put my lids from old jars on tray and set my oven to 100 and my tray keeps then warm. I have also used a bread stone under my tray to keep things warm.
Hello Katz, thank you much for sharing with us the use of various lids, your warming pad use for the tops is really neat. I will try your suggestions and I know this will work because you have tried and tured it:) God Bless you all !
this is GREAT!!!! i couldn't figure out what i was doing wrong with my food saver lid sealer, thanks! and now i will SAVE, SAVE, SAVE on my jar/lid/ring buying!!! LOVE to RECYCLE! WAKE-UP, STAND-UP and SPEAK-UP!
excellent advice thanks for posting this. I know I have had problems vacuum sealing canning jars with any kind of fine powder in them. I started placing a cleaned cut circular cloth on top of the powder and that fixed the problem the powder could not get sucked up into the seals or the vacuum sealer. I have used coffee filters on top of the powder too, but got concerned with any kind of bacteria that might be on the paper.
You are the best! I was just talking to my mom about this. Now I have to call her back and let her know katzcradul has a video on it lol. We love your videos!
That's a good question. They cannot be use again for traditional canning. You would never use them again for 'hot' processing of food, however, they are perfect for vacuum sealing dry food in jars. (Truth be told, if I could not get my hands on any new jar lids, and I had to, I'd reuse mine for foods canned in a boiling water bath, but never pressure canned foods. But don't tell anybody I said that. lol )
There is really no need to sterilize these jars for dehydrated food storage. However, the do need to be perfectly dry. The only way to grow mold or fungus if for you food not to be thoroughly dehydrated.
I stick my used canning lids and the commercial lids in my toaster oven (heated up a bit and turned off) for a minute or two and then vacuum seal my jars - Works like a charm!!
I like your idea on warming the lids...I was just wanting to do a few jars one day.. so i just put them on top of the toaster . let them heat up for @ 20 seconds... this works great for me.
You could, but you'd have to be careful. And then there's the opening and closing of the door every time you want another lid, which is a hassle. I like the heating pad method.
Don't know of any gasket fix-it paint or anything like that. Good idea though. Here's my thoughts on it. You're never going to wear that rubber away with vacuum sealing. Use it as many times as you like. Now I'm going to be very honest with you here. If bad times come, and I can't get any more canning lids, I will re-use the ones that have only been used in a short boiling water bath process, and save all my new lids for pressure canning, which is much harder on the lids.
Well, I just ordered my own mother's day present (FoodSaver!), so I'll try it and let you know next week. (You know, because I have to wait to be surprised on Mother's Day with my new toy!) :)
Aj, not to worry if your jars have a tight seal, there's no violent pop-off when you try to lift the lid, no off odor, etc, you're good to go. Don't worry about the fat floating in the jar. That's normal. Also, some fat can be released into the canner when processing. Not a problem.
i have some blueberries bushes and i know i need to do atic soil and i know they need a lot of sun and they have been getting all that but my question is do you know why some of them are turning brown
I'm so excited to try this! A few questions: how long should I boil "new" canning jar lids since I don't have access to used ones? Will the Food Saver brand canisters work with a Seal a Meal sealer? the tube input appears the same, but I'm not certain. Love the baby food jar idea as the only canister I have right now is the very short one! Thanks for the inspiration!!!
I'm new to canning just did some strawberry jam....I either read somewhere or seen in a video that the canning lids can only be used once after seeing this video I'm confused do I chuck them or can they be reused?
Thanks! I am planning on buying the lid sealers for my jars in the next few weeks and am going to save every glass jar that I can. I won't deal with those stupid plastic ones because only my mayo comes in them.
I tried using the heating pad as you suggested, with mixed results. Some jars stay sealed some the seal will fail several days later. Not sure why, I even the left the lids on the heating pad extra time to make sure the seal was soft, could it be the jar being room temp is part of the issue?
You don't need to and actually should never 'boil' the lids. Just wash them well with soap and water and let them air dry for this application. (If you were using them to can traditionally, you'd 'simmer' them in very hot water.) They should work just fine that way. I don't know anything about a Seal a Meal, but I'm guessing the ports for the tubing are probably the same. Thanks for leaving a comment.
I have the exact opposite from being able to seal. It seals so good I cannot get the lid off! Mason jars are ok but I have used cheese whiz and pickle jars & the seal is so tight just about impossible to get the lid off.
I just simmer my lids in water for 10 minutes, dry them and then seal them as usual with the vacuum sealer, and then add the ring. I don't have a problem with water because the lids are dry and cool quickly, but the rubber is still soft. The lids seal great. Leave the ring on for 1/2 hour and then take it off to test the seal on the jar for yourself by removing the lid. For storage leave the ring on.
I owned a food saver for years and didn't know it would seal jars. I got tired of paying for the bags, and didn't really use it that much anymore so I sold it at a garage sale!! So now I'm sheepishly asking for a new one for mother's day. Haha! A question for you-- forgive me if it's already been addressed, but I looked and couldn't find anything. Do the tattler lids work with the lid attachment for sealing jars?
It would be difficult to regulate. I have an electric stove and its lowest setting is 170 degrees which is too hot in my opinion. Besides which, you've have to open and close the oven door repeatedly. It's just so much easier to have the warm lids sitting on the counter next to me...and I don't have to hurry and get them on the jars.
The larger baby food jars often seal for me. It's the tiny ones I have a problem with. Even with heating the lids more often than not they won't seal for me and when they do they often lose their seal within a couple of hours. I'm starting to think the volume inside these tiny jars is just too small to hold enough vacuum to maintain a seal.
If I am using Oxygen sensors in the content then why do I have to vacuum seal the jars? Please respond some of the info is very confusing to us that are just starting out.
An oxygen sensor is the little pink tablet that comes in your package of oxygen absorbers to let you know if they are still good. If the sensor is blue, your oxygen absorbers are no longer good. Now, if you meant, why do you have to use on oxygen absorber if you're vacuum sealing...you don't. It's just extra protection. The vacuum sealer will get most of the oxygen out, but some folks to use an 02 absorber too. You also can just use and 02 absorber, and not even bother vacuum sealing.
Ms Katz, I'm not sure I understand how to actually vacuum seal the jars. My regular mouth and wide mouth vacuum seal attachments don't fit on the jars. Can you show how you actually seal them?
You would have to put them in a canister with an attachment on top for the vacuum seal hose to be able to suck the air out. Check it out: www.foodsaver.com/accessories/T02-0052-01P.html#q=canisters&start=3
+katzcradul , I watched the video and still a little confused. Are you saying above to place your small jar to be sealed in the canister and pull vacuum on it? I always have jars given to me, mixed in with canning jars. This would be great to know! TY!
Answering an older great video: As to used jars, I just dry canned a raft of flour and pasta in used Adams peanut butter jars. Great size for me at 2 - 2 1/2 C. each. Some of those jars were my Moms - 1985! All sealed beautifully. Just make sure the lid gaskets, jars and rims are really clean. If the gasket in the lid feels at all sticky use a little bit of soft scrub cleanser on a sponge to slick them up. I am going to do some vac. pack for dry beans, lintels and such as I think the dry can may degrade the quality of the bean nutrition with the heat. Used some tall spaghetti jars for bigger volume of flour (3 1/2 C. ea.) with dry can and they sealed great too. I use Smucker little jelly jars for dried veggies - a 12 oz. pack dries to 1 C. and fits perfectly in those jars. This tip on how to really seal them is great! Plus I have several sizes of the clear vac canisters and wondered what I was going to do with them. Easy to find in thrift stores. As a single ol' gal, smaller sizes work perfect for me. Save those jars!!! Save your canning jars and lids for serious canning.
